Ernest Clayton Collection of California Wild Flowers

The Ernest Clayton Collection of California Wild Flowers consists of 200 watercolors painted between the years 1942 and 1952. The San Francisco Public Library purchased the first set of watercolors in the mid-1940s. Clayton continued adding to the collection through 1952. Mr. John Thomas Howell, a botanist at the California Academy of Sciences, facilitated the purchase.

The online gallery, a sample of 36 watercolors, is arranged by the numerical index Clayton originally created for the collection.